Clarke honored for international efforts in agriculture, rural development

COLLEGE STATION – Dr. Neville Clarke received the 2013 Special Service Award from the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development recently at the Future Leader’s Forum in Washington, D.C.

Clarke, special assistant for program development for the vice chancellor of agriculture at Texas A&M University, was recognized for his “outstanding contributions towards poverty alleviation and food security in the developing countries” and for his commitment to the association’s mission.

Dr. Neville Clarke (Photo courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife Research)

The citation noted that since 1954, “Clarke has served our country in several capacities both in uniform and in the civil society.” It was upon his retirement as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force in 1975 that Clarke became director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, now called Texas A&M AgriLife Research.

In that role, Clarke initiated research projects in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, the citation noted, along with the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, which were aimed at “reducing poverty, hunger and environmental degradation in developing countries.” That concept has since been developed to serve smallholder livestock producers in other African nations as well as in Asia and Latin America.

Clarke also was founding director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Center of Excellence on Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense and has been a U.S. Department of Agriculture advisor on agricultural biosecurity since 1996.

He earned a pre-med associate’s degree from Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Texas A&M, and a master’s and doctorate in physiology from the University of Washington School of Medicine.